


Ex-Party-Boy Goes To Class

by haplessmedstudent



Series: Hospital AU (That No One Asked For) [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8222948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haplessmedstudent/pseuds/haplessmedstudent
Summary: There are few things as horrible as waking up hungover, sleep-deprived and disheveled on your first day at work.AKA the fic where Grantaire the intern and Enjolras the Trauma resident meet for the first time, from R's very hungover perspective.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I am basing this off of real-life experiences, although the Musain Medical Centre (MMC), the characters and the shops mentioned therein are not based on any real-life situations, places or people. Any similarities you find are purely co-incidental.  
> 2\. Now beta'd by the lovely TriumphantDisaster :D (http://archiveofourown.org/users/TriumphantDisaster)

There are few things as horrible as waking up hungover, sleep-deprived and disheveled on your first day at work.

No, wait, listen — apart from the actual life-changing tragedies of a loved one getting into an accident, receiving a terminal diagnosis, of finding out that your lover was cheating on you — it was the small, under-the-radar hassles that could sock people a solid one. 

Grantaire knew this intimately. In fact, he had read somewhere that legitimate, established stressors — any of those aforementioned life-changing tragedies, or a predator running after you, presumably — the body would prepare for by giving your hormones a leg up. The adrenaline rush, so to speak. Maybe his ancient forebears appreciated the distinction between a man-eating tiger and the mild urge to pee. Maybe. 

Mostly all this meant was, while Grantaire recognized that a hangover and a hurricane were not categorically equivalent on the scale, when it’s thundering into your Monday morning at 7:15 am, it’s all the same. Fuck Holmes and Rahe.

He wished he could blame this on someone else. But the fact was, he had just been shifting out of Orthopaedics — which was glorious, and thrilling, and felt a bit like automotive class, except with people — and Bahorel, who was a walking Ortho stereotype, had roped Marius and him into going down to the nearest pub. Bahorel was his older brother in their fraternity. He knew how much Bahorel could drink. The man had been known to chase down scotch with whisky, wine, water and more scotch. Bahorel had been training his liver in the detox game since he was a child. His liver was a recovering communist country with dreams of golden Olympic glory.

And so Grantaire invited Marius — a barb, but a close friend — to go out with him, Bahorel, and Bahorel’s other co-workers. So they could go out drinking. Right before they shifted into Trauma.

Rookie mistake.

His phone, tablet and wristwatch all decided to do their bizarre alternating shrilling of doom.

“ _Uuuugggghhhh,_ ” he said, with feeling.

He lived alone — Grantaire’s dad might be the least affectionate dad in history, but the man was a banker and had bought him a condo apropos of nothing — and therefore had to rely on three alarms to wake him up.

There was a glorious throbbing in his head. He actually swayed a bit as he sat up. Was he about to vomit? Was he new to this?

Bahorel would be ashamed. 

Bahorel could also piss off.

Which reminded him — bathroom, and — _there_. If he could steadily just pee a quart every two hours or so he would be fine. 

And so a couple of minutes later, Grantaire, now showered, brushed and locking the front door behind him, was armed with a Red Bull and a water-filled Nalgene. He had wanted to make more of an effort for his first day, but decided to go the basic path of sea-green scrubs and a camel-toned satchel (he was vain, but tired, _whatever_ ). Theoretically, this could lend a fresh tint to his skin instead of making him look pale and, like, something Marius Fucking Pontmercy had to carry up the stairs.

~~

 

“Marius Fucking Pontmercy, you are a godsend.”

“Drink your water first, Grantaire, before I let you have this coffee.”

Grantaire did as soon as he made his way to a seat beside Marius, in the room where they were supposed to be oriented by the Trauma person, whoever he was. Marius’ water, because the man was actually a quaint coffeeshop, was filled with lemon and cucumber slices. It was so refreshing, Grantaire finished half of it.

This was a variation of their morning ritual — Grantaire would bring Marius Red Bull, Marius would bring Grantaire coffee, mostly because Grantaire never remembered to start his coffee machine before anything else and always woke up thirty minutes before go-time, and the other man, for all that his coffee machine was top-of-the-line, abhorred the drink. 

Marius sighed as Grantaire guzzled his flavored water, because he was a long-suffering friend and a good person. He also brought out a Tupperware of orange slices. 

Grantaire changed his mind. Marius was a _soccer mom_.

“I have…beef jerky in my bag? If you want?” Grantaire hazarded, eyeing the orange slices lustfully. 

“These are actually for you. I know fruit helps fuck-all but every bit of fluid counts. I don’t want you too dehydrated when you go on duty later.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Grantaire very nearly whined — but he did not. He did not bitch, nor did he whine. This was the hangover talking, because somewhere between third and fourth year of med school his partying took a downturn and he traded street cred, earned for always being the last man standing after a night out, for a pretty good GPA, 264/99 on the recent boards and Marius Pontmercy mothering him.

“Hush, you. Anyway I owe you one for introducing me to the future Mrs Pontmercy last night.”

“…I did? You’re…welcome?”

Marius sighed and his front bangs blew up a little with it. “Her name’s Cosette, and she’s two years ahead of us, but she was really cool. And beautiful. And has a cast-iron liver.”

Grantaire flapped his hand weakly. “Oh, her. Yeah, I remember now. There was a tiny blonde angel and melodic hollering.”

“I don’t know, it sounded like she was singing ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman’—”

“Ah, a Disney impromptu belter. You deserve each other, Marius, truly—”

— and here they had to stop suddenly because someone slammed the door open and strode inside.

And — strode — verb, past tense of stride, ‘to move over with long, measured steps’ — was indeed the word to describe what the man was doing.

Grantaire looked at the newcomer. 

…He wasn't still drunk, was he?

It was just — could the most attractive person Grantaire had seen in his life, exist, theoretically, in the same space as he did? Did this man not belong on the pages of an editorial, instead? The stage or a TV station? The big-screen adaptation of something classic, like a book or musical — guaranteed to be watched by millions, just so the rest of the world could similarly marvel at his face?

…Grantaire was probably still drunk. Damn it.

But he wasn’t kidding. First, the man was tall, and there was a solidity to his frame that hinted at athleticism, judging by the shift of his shoulders and the solid line of muscle running down his forearms. His hair was a blonde that had to be natural, and the raw waves indicated that they casually existed in life as an effortless bun. 

But all of that was window-dressing to the fact that his face was one Grantaire would paint and write odes to.

It was one of those faces that seemed to be both form and content, like his Formalist classes used to teach him — excellently-sculpted jaw already working to open his full lips, looking like he was always about to say something, and that he was going to be damn sure of it, too; a brief flare of the nostrils on his elegant nose as he took the last of a sip from his travel mug; and his eyes, blue even from this distance, although he had yet to look up at them, still fixed as they were on the variety of things in his hands.

“Good morning, guys. I’m Dr Enjolras, your monitor until December. I’ll be orienting you today, and then we’ll let you go so you can attend the ED’s orientation with Dr Bahorel, and then one of you comes back to me later to go on duty tonight,” the blonde archangel said, and Grantaire tried to understand why he didn’t assume that this man’s voice would not be as wonderful as the rest of him.

Grantaire watched silently as Marius waved from his seat — he loved the guy, but sometimes he could give off the first impression to be a bit of a doofus — as Enjolras turned those arresting eyes to him, and reveled in that electrifying moment of eye contact, and asked “So, you're Grantaire, my intern for the month?”

So, let’s be honest here — Grantaire would be his anything if he was asked, for as long as Enjolras was asking. Boot-polishing would not go amiss.

 _Take that, self-preservation, and have a hungover cry about it,_ went Grantaire’s inner voice. 

Grantaire, however, was a dancer, a fencer, a boxer, and an excellent flirt to boot, so he tried to stand smoothly; hopefully, he didn’t look too hungover. Hopefully there was no orange pulp stuck in his teeth.

“Yes sir, Grantaire, ED intern today, aspiring pediatrician otherwise. I look forward to working with you.”

Boy was he ever.

Enjolras had a solid, dry grip — and his hands, Grantaire was pleased to note, were not as perfect as the rest of him. His nails were little wonky squares, his knuckles scarred like he punched people a lot (or else did push-ups on them; what a mental image!) and his palm was the rough criss-cross of someone who was used to hard work.

When he sat down and Enjolras began his little orientation, Grantaire, unable to resist the temptation of having the man look at him again, defaulted to basic playground tactics. He started pulling on Enjolras’ figurative pigtails.

“Why are we still using the 7th edition of Tintinalli, sir? That came out in 2010. Even Medscape has more up-to-date information.”

Enjolras fixed him with a piercing stare. “While that’s true, Grantaire, the information in that site is both too specific and not structured enough. I want you guys to have a proper outline to follow.”

And so it went. When they discussed critical appraisals:

“Enjolras, why don’t we get to choose our journal articles? We can still do trauma and ED topics but we could relate it to our individual tracks instead. Marius here can do something radiology-related and connect it to trauma. I can do pedia trauma articles. Don’t you think that’s better than just working on the department’s current pet projects?”

And when Enjolras raised the topic of weekly quizzes:

“I think it’s a waste of time if we don’t have practical exams. We should have practical tests instead, seeing as this is both a surgery and an ED rotation. Don’t you think so? Ask us to do FAST scans, instead. Ask us to demonstrate the proper way to do a DPL. The proper way to dress burn patients. That’s more high-yield.”

And on and on it went. Enjolras’ gazes alternated between ‘absolutely not’ to ‘that’s a good idea, actually,’ to ‘you’re a cheeky one, aren’t you’ but he seemed to take Grantaire’s suggestions seriously and actually consider them. And he seemed to enjoy shooting down Grantaire’s arguments, too, judging by his little huff of amusement at the end of the orientation.

“I can already tell this month’s going to be a handful,” he said, eyeing them both with amusement. “So. You both have my number. Grantaire, check in with me after your ED orientation. Marius, for now, I’ll see you around. Be careful of Bahorel, don’t let that man bully you into forking out your lunch money for his food.”

Grantaire raised his eyebrows and grinned at Enjolras. “He’s my frat brother. I’ll tell him how you scare interns off with threats of his petty thievery.”

Enjolras laughed at Grantaire as he gathered his shit-ton of things and headed out the door. “Make sure you do that.” And out he went.

They both stared after the door, as Marius gave a low whistle. 

“You’ve got it bad.” 

Grantaire sagged in his seat and looked at the ceiling. “I can’t believe his face.”

“We’ve been friends since first year, so I can decode your weird flirting methods, but he can’t. He’s an adult, and knows that only 7-year-olds insult each other when they actually can’t wait to grow up and get married. So if you want to make him like you, you should stop interrupting his every other sentence.”

Grantaire leveled him with an unimpressed look. “If I can remember right, all you did when you met Cosette was grasp her hand and tell her that your world was black until she was there, and something about despair. You rhymed, Marius.”

The other man colored under his freckles. “I did not. Even if I did, I was stupid-drunk and she was stupid-pretty, and love makes people do stupid things, okay.”

“’s the same. Except I’m hungover. And instead of reciting poetry, I scored us a practical exam and six quizzes.”

Marius covered his face and moaned. “Stop reminding me. I hate you. You’re not going to be invited to mine and Cosette’s wedding anymore.”

Grantaire socked him on the shoulder as they both stood up and grinned cheekily. He was already looking forward to working with Enjolras and seeing more of his grumpy face. “You’re still invited to mine.”

 

~~

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I made Bahorel both the ED resident and an Ortho resident. Not actually possible. But for the purposes of R and Marius' orientation, it is!  
> 2\. FAST - focused abdominal sonographic test, which is an ultrasound done in the ER when assessing blunt abdominal trauma, which is an intern competency; DPL - diagnostic peritoneal lavage, which should be done in an OR set-up and is a resident competency, but Grantaire was being cheeky. Critical appraisals - done to select which published journal articles can contribute to one's practice and/or research, and involves math, statistics and tables, exactly as tedious as it sounds; OSCE - objective structured clinical exam - a practical exam that can demonstrate a variety of procedures done in the clinics/in the hospital, and can be done on dummies or real patients.  
> 3\. The dynamic between interns and first years tends to be less strict/more casual, unless you're Marius. I think that's what allows R to be as cheeky as he is with Enjolras. That being said, this bantering-interation was stretched for the purposes of the fic.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading! 'Til the next one!


End file.
